What Were You Useless At?

Anything that doesn't fit anywhere else, but that's still CH related.

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Angela Pratt 56-63
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Re: What Were You Useless At?

Post by Angela Pratt 56-63 »

Tennis - I was hopeless at,despite being in school teams for swimming, netball and hockey. When I was teacher training inP.E I was graded as a "novice" in tennis despite 7 years of C.H. coaching......
Chris Blewett
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Re: What Were You Useless At?

Post by Chris Blewett »

Latin...... so much so that I took extra english in the 3rd Form!!!!

Looking back - I was terrible at interpersonal relations........... mind you, I'm not much better now and thats after I've worked out that I'm not really an extrovert but a deep introvert!!!!!!
LHB, Th A 1968-Xmas 73
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Re: What Were You Useless At?

Post by Katharine »

Singing! My first year at CH, when we were preparing for the Singing Competition (one two part song, accompanied on the piano and an unaccompanied psalm) the VI former coaching 6s, told me that it was the duty of the youngest in the house to turn the pages for the pianist. I accepted this without thinking any more about it, later she asked me to mouth the words of the psalm because " a CH singing voice is very special, and as a new girl mine wasn't yet a CH voice" again I accepted it. She left that summer.

The following year the girl in charge was faced with a problem - but she was in luck, the new youngest in the house (Alexandra Szantyr) was the pianist, so as the previous youngest I obviously had to turn the pages. I don't remember anything about the psalm, by the third year when I was still turning the pages, the penny began to drop!

I wonder what became of that first trainer, she should have gone on to become a diplomat!
Katharine Dobson (Hills) 6.14, 1959 - 1965
dsmg
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Re: What Were You Useless At?

Post by dsmg »

Bill, it was West Side Story, or a bit of it anyway. I can't remember what the extravaganza was celebrating, maybe it was the new theatre. You mention Stratton, Lane.. oh what memories.
Play up Pompey!
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Re: What Were You Useless At?

Post by AKAP »

dsmg wrote:A teacher once wrote at the bottom of one of my History essays:´Anything related to fact seems totally coincidental`.
My father's favourite comment on my school report came from Nelly Todd

"Never gives up hope of finsishing even when I do."
Angela Pratt 56-63
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Re: What Were You Useless At?

Post by Angela Pratt 56-63 »

Oh yes, I forgot that after only one year the only person Queenie Blench (Latin teacher)got rid of was ME because I apparently did a complete muddle of french and Latin in my exams. (I did some extra cookery with the B class instead, much more fun!). However give her her due she laughed and found it very funny several years later when I told her my elder brother Ian (at Horsham Maine A) had won an "0pen Scholarship" in Classics to Cambridge.......
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Re: What Were You Useless At?

Post by sejintenej »

Everything with especial inaffinity for Latin, French, English, history, sport - though I seem to have been semi competent at producing rubbish and drawing hands. Katharine mentioned singing; there is a permanent demand from the earthquake centres that I do not even try because of their false readings :roll:
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Re: What Were You Useless At?

Post by Katharine »

My brother was as unmusical as me. I am not sure whether it was when he was in the Prep or later in Thorn B,that he had piano lessons. His report one term read "Both his time and mine own would be better spent apart"
Katharine Dobson (Hills) 6.14, 1959 - 1965
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Re: What Were You Useless At?

Post by Avon »

Oh yes - I forgot music. I don't have a musical bone in my body. I think there were some lessons on music on the 2nd form and then I never reentered the building.

Spent a lot of time smoking behind it though.
Kit Bartlett
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Re: What Were You Useless At?

Post by Kit Bartlett »

I remember D.S.Macnutt when in to him for Latin on the L.E. made the comment " Weak, Muddle Headed, Inaccurate, Tries.
However in spite of this I did manage, somewhat later, to get a Credit in the subject at the then School Certificate.
Are there any other memories of D.S.M's School Report comments out there?
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Re: What Were You Useless At?

Post by anniexf »

History! We had an erudite historian, Dr. Frances Page, who utterly confused me - all those Henrys! I couldn't get my head round dates, relationships, battles etc. and my exam results reflected my confusion. However later in life I developed an interest in social history and suddenly everything started to make sense. It began with English A-level Chaucer, and ever since I have been filling in the considerable gaps in my knowledge, and actually enjoying it!
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Re: What Were You Useless At?

Post by fra828 »

anniexf wrote:History! We had an erudite historian, Dr. Frances Page, who utterly confused me - all those Henrys! I couldn't get my head round dates, relationships, battles etc. and my exam results reflected my confusion. However later in life I developed an interest in social history and suddenly everything started to make sense. It began with English A-level Chaucer, and ever since I have been filling in the considerable gaps in my knowledge, and actually enjoying it!

Oh yes History, I got all muddled with all those dates too! Miss Farrow who taught us was a kind, gentle person. Apologies , Miss F, if you ever read this forum, but your history lessons were so b.o..o.. oring! We just wrote down dates the entire lesson, it all needed 'bringing to life'. I longed to learn some 20th century stuff such as the world wars, but we only vaguely touched on this, never really got past mid 19th century. I enjoyed French and German and playing tennis.
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Re: What Were You Useless At?

Post by sejintenej »

I'm sure I was supposed to have had history lessons at CH but I simply cannot remember any classes, any teacher trying to instil anything into me or anyone else having anything to do with history. 1066 was taught in primary schoool - not CH though Shakespeare did contribute. That said, I suppose I now know quite a lot about how English archers deliberately spread fatal diseases to their enemies (biological warfare is old hat), the murderous Simon de Montfort's Cathar crusade and also about the Napoleonic origins of the Swedish Royal Family.
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Re: What Were You Useless At?

Post by Chris Blewett »

sejintenej wrote:I'm sure I was supposed to have had history lessons at CH but I simply cannot remember any classes, any teacher trying to instil anything into me or anyone else having anything to do with history. 1066 was taught in primary schoool - not CH though Shakespeare did contribute. That said, I suppose I now know quite a lot about how English archers deliberately spread fatal diseases to their enemies (biological warfare is old hat), the murderous Simon de Montfort's Cathar crusade and also about the Napoleonic origins of the Swedish Royal Family.
History interesting what jumps into your mind - classes by Nick Plumley, I shall always be grateful to him for teaching me to read Secretary Hand...... and thus gave me the skills to prove my father wrong once (the only time!) when he misread something and couldn't make sense of the history!
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Re: What Were You Useless At?

Post by Requested Removal 18 »

I can't say I was rubbish at music as I was never taught it at any point. In theory I could have been good at it. Guess I will never know.

Now the thing I was rubbish at was running. Sprinting? Hopeless. Long distance? Probably worse. Middle distance? Nope, no good there either... I managed to get out of the school steeplechase by being the "Official" photographer. I simply asked Mr Stindt who I knew fairly well, and he ok'd it with my housemaster. Was able to get away with skiving off it for 4 years! :lol:
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